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Import plan drafted to cope with coal shortage
The Viet Nam Coal and Mineral Group (Vinacomin), Viet Nam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) and Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) are expected to submit plans to the Government to establish a coal import steering committee in a move to avoid a shortage of coal affecting power generation in the country in the near future.
The groups said that the coal consumption volume in the country has been increasing sharply in recent years in order to meet increasingly high demands for electricity.
Tran Xuan Hoa, General Director of Vinacomin, estimated that the country's demand for coal would be 11.4 million tonnes in 2010 and 63.2 million tonnes in 2015. The figure is forecast to increase to 196 million tonnes in 2020. As such, Vinacomin, the coal producer cannot meet such a high demand.
According to Vinacomin, with this year's estimated power demand of 88-93 billion kWh and 201-250 billion kWh by 2020, most of which is generated from coal, the country will have to import coal for power generation from 2015.
Hoa said that by 2020, Viet Nam will have to import roughly 100 million tonnes of coal and it will have to spend large amounts of foreign currency, if coal prices remain around US$120 per tonne.
It is expected that by 2012, Vinacomin alone will lack 8.2 million tonnes of coal for power projects, while the figure will be 12.8 million tonnes by 2015.
Volume
The volume of coal to be imported for thermopower plants in the south would be some 28 million tones by 2015 and 66 million tones by 2020.
The groups said that Viet Nam can import coal from Indonesia and Australia, however, admitting that it will be difficult for Viet Nam to negotiate with the exporters on purchasing coal in large volumes, especially when the exporters are selling coal to Japan, South Korea and China.
Moreover, it will not easy to import coal as most Asian countries have set up ambitious plans to develop coal-run thermopower plants, which will lift demand for coal in the regional market.
Director of Song Hong (Red River) Energy Company under Vinacomin Nguyen Thanh Son was concerned that if Viet Nam could not supply enough coal for power generation domestically, it would cost huge sums to establish coal mining projects abroad. Son said that China invested $5.6 billion to mine 30 million tonnes of coal a year in Australia.
To avoid coal imports, Son recommended the country force consumers to use power economically and enhance the use of wind and solar powered energy, develop nuclear power plants and develop mining in the Red River Coal Basin.
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